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The Salt
Washington State Butcher Spikes Pig Feed With Weed
May 20, 2013 Despite its name, the "pot pig" experiment isn't an attempt to develop a new meaty treat for stoners. Instead, a Seattle butcher is feeding marijuana seeds, stems and root bulbs to swine as a cheeky money-saving measure.
Krulwich Wonders...
What Did I Do Last Summer? Oh, I Discovered How To Make Babies Without Sex. And You?
May 17, 2013 Sex is nice, but can animals make babies without it? One summer, two little boys, their tutor and the tutor's two friends did an experiment to explore this question. What they discovered, back in 1740, shocked the world.
Shots - Health News
Human Scent Is Even Sweeter For Malaria Mosquitoes
May 16, 2013 Scientists used a Dutch woman's dirty stocking to learn that mosquitoes infected with malaria find humans hard to resist. Like a fungus that turns ants into zombies, the parasite seems to change the behavior of the mosquitoes for its own benefit.
The Salt
Go Fish (Somewhere Else): Warming Oceans Are Altering Catches
May 15, 2013 Fish are moving away from the equator and toward the poles to maintain their preferred water temperature. That means, for example, that fishermen are seeing swordfish normally found in the Mediterranean swimming near Denmark. But in the tropics, there are no fish to replace the ones that are leaving.
Parallels
The Enemy Inside: Rhino's Protectors Sometimes Aid Poachers
May 14, 2013 The defenders of Africa's rhinos are battling a well-financed and well-informed enemy. Poachers clear $40,000 or more for a single rhino horn. They have cash for the latest weaponry and to pay for inside information from some of the very people whose job it is to protect the rhinos.
Krulwich Wonders...
What Is It About Bees And Hexagons?
May 14, 2013 Bees could build flat honeycombs from just three shapes: squares, triangles or hexagons. But for some reason, bees choose hexagons. Always "perfect" hexagons. Why?
Parallels
Vietnam's Appetite For Rhino Horn Drives Poaching In Africa
May 13, 2013 Demand for rhino horn, used in traditional Chinese medicine, is fueling a slaughter of the animals in Africa. In Vietnam, the sought-after commodity is fetching prices as high as $1,400 an ounce, or about the price of gold. There, some believe ground horn can cure everything from hangovers to cancer.
Around the Nation
For Year-Round Buzz, Beekeepers 'Fast-Forward Darwinism'
May 12, 2013 Honeybees are in trouble across the U.S., but one association in Massachusetts is hoping to boost the population in its own area. The bees it currently uses have a hard time surviving the winter and battling other foes that have been killing bees nationwide. So beekeepers in Plympton decided to breed their own.
To Count Elephants In The Forest, Watch Where You Step
May 11, 2013 To know how elephants are faring, they need to be counted. But how do you count them when they're hidden under thick forest canopies? A conservationist in the 1980s started to count their poop, and that helped to create a model of elephants' numbers and movement through the forest.
Krulwich Wonders...
Moths That Drive Cars (Really)
May 9, 2013 Welcome to the New World in which, no kidding, insects run robots. In this case, 14 moths take 14 drives in a wheeled vehicle and steer right to the target. Seeing is believing.
Krulwich Wonders...
Wildlife That Isn't Wild And Isn't Alive
May 8, 2013 They're out of the lab now, flying through the air, crawling in the grass, buzzing near you, swimming in the ocean. They're robots. They're among us. We don't notice yet. But we will.
The Salt
Bee Deaths May Have Reached A Crisis Point For Crops
May 7, 2013 The number of honeybees has now dwindled to the point where there may not be enough to pollinate some major U.S. crops, including almonds, blueberries and apples. And this year brought farmers closer than ever to a true pollination crisis.
This Bat Knows How To Drink
May 7, 2013 The Pallas' long-tongued bat has a neat trick at the tip of its tongue — tiny hairlike structures that fill with blood and stand straight out. This turns the tongue into a nectar-slurping mop at just the right time.